Higher education and social change

An agenda for future higher education research is proposed which incorporates four interconnected elements: changing social contexts; their implications for higher education; mechanisms of interaction between higher education and society; higher education’s impact on society. The role of comparative research in investigating these topics is discussed and a set of priorities for future research questions is proposed. This final article draws heavily on the HELF final report published by the European Science Foundation entitled Higher Education Looking Forward: an agenda for future research and written by the author together with Jurgen Enders, Christine Musselin, Ulrich Teichler and Jussi Valimaa. The author acknowledges the contributions of his co-authors of the HELF report to the ideas and words contained in the present article.     

Reconsidering the social and economic purposes of higher education

In this article I seek to reconsider the social and economic purposes of higher education. It begins with the premise that there appears to be a general trend towards governments positioning higher education primarily in terms of the economic role that it can fulfil. Such a trend, however, has attracted considerable criticism. In this article I argue that the problem for higher education is not it having an economic role, but the narrowness of the way in which that role is often conceptualised. Drawing on critical theory I explore the interrelation of economic and social factors within higher education and the wider society in which it is situated. This article argues for a redefinition of the purposes of higher education to ensure that both universities and workplaces are sites of human creativity and that the profound and exciting work within institutions of higher education benefits all members of society.     

高职院校的人才培养与社会需求

当前，高职院校的人才培养与社会需要间存在突出矛盾，究其原因，主要有：办学模式阵旧、一味追求学历教育、教材使用不尽合理、教师素质达不到要求、实训基地不健全、校企分离等。解决好这一矛盾高职教育必须转变观念，深化教学改革，建设“双师型”教师队伍，开展高职教育的科学研究等，以适应社会发展的需求。     

British Asian women and the costs of higher education in England

This article will examine Asian women’s experiences of financial support in higher education. The article is based on 30 in-depth interviews with Asian women who were studying at a ‘new’ (post-1992) university in the South East of England. Women identified themselves as Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. The findings reveal that women’s religious and cultural background affects their attitudes towards financial support whilst at university. Through their participation in higher education, women are able to use their social and ethnic capital to enable them to receive financial and other kinds of support necessary for their success in higher education.     

高职体育教育中的体验式教学探讨

体验式教学能够很好地突出学生的主体地位,有助于促进高职体育教学效果的顺利实现。本文就高职体育教育中的体验式教学进行分析和研究。     

A gaggle of raging grannies: the empowerment of older Canadian women through social activism

This article explores a particular expression of social activism by older Canadian women to consider its implications for later life learning. ‘Older women’, despite their heterogeneity, have tended to be pathologized as a part of the ‘problem’ of ageing and languishing welfare societies—i.e. stereotyped as passive recipients of welfare and healthcare services. Yet, they can also be seen as part of the ‘answer’ to the challenges societies like Canada face. Given the combination of a greying population and the growing tide of citizens' participatory democracy, it is timely and important to shed light on older women's social activism. Based on document analysis and fieldwork with the Raging Grannies in Canada, this qualitative case study examines the influence of activism on women's later life learning and development from an interdisciplinary perspective including adult development, critical gerontology, women's studies and psychodrama. Analysis focuses on the Grannies' motivations, the strategies they employ in their activities and the process of learning and changes they say they undergo. Themes emerging from document analysis, interviews and participant observation of 15 Grannies in Ontario are divided into three categories: (1) ‘Raging Grannies’ as a self‐defined social role; (2) the Grannies' dual‐layered mask strategies; and (3) their collective identity and sense of empowerment. These do much to explain the successes of Raging Grannies' activism as a social movement, which fosters older women's creative energy, critical awareness and self‐assurance despite their physical and psychological problems in later life. Implications of the Raging Grannies' movement help us reconsider current trends in later life learning, which tend overlook the needs and abilities of women in the third age.     

高等教育大众化:日本的经验与教训

日本高等教育大众化的实现具有与欧美各国不同的路径,即以大力发展对社会需求具有“敏感性”的私立高等教育来达成的,但也因此遇到高等教育质量的下降及爆发全国性的大学学潮等问题。为了摆脱高等教育面临的“危机”,构建适应大众阶段的、新的大学和高等教育系统,日本政府(文部省)进行了一系列的政策性探索,其中最具代表性的是中央教育审议会于1971年提交的咨询报告所阐述的关于高等教育的13项改革构想及其实施。日本高等教育大众化所遇到的诸多问题,在许多方面与现在正处于急速发展的大众化过程的中国具有共通性,其为解决问题而出台的诸政策对中国来说,也具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Estranged students in higher education: navigating social and economic capitals

ABSTRACT

Family is widely regarded as a cornerstone of student support. When family support exist as an essential form of social capital making, rupture of family ties places students in a disadvantageous position. This paper focuses on estranged students’ accounts of their experiences of higher education, highlighting how capital dynamics shape their academic trajectories. Based on interviews with 21 estranged students, our research uncovers different dimensions of estranged students’ struggles and successes as they move through academia. This paper explores the social imagination that surrounds the university student, or ‘student experience’, as resting upon family support. The authors propose that widening participation policies and practices need to be more attuned to the realities that mark estranged students’ experiences, as they are not only impacted by the scarcity of either economic or social capital, but also by the instability of interrelated capitals that contribute to precarious and volatile experiences.     

高等职业教育要为经济结构调整服务

经济结构调整是现代社会发展的需要，它必须有人力资源的支撑。高等职业教育要为经济结构调整服务，不仅为学龄青年服务，还要为下岗人员，在职人员等社会青壮年服务，不仅办学历教育，还要办多种形式、多层次的培训，做好职业资格认证工作，与经济结构调整形成良性互动关系。     

Higher education reform in perspective: The Japanese experience

Japanese colleges and universitiesare in an age of great transition. Currentreforms can be counted as some of the mostextensive and radical changes in the history ofJapanese higher education. Although the agendaof recent reforms has been conditioned bycontemporary socio-political circumstances,many of the ongoing changes are rooted inhistory. In this article, the reforms ofJapanese higher education are examined from along-range historical perspective. Thoughpre-war years are briefly mentioned, the mainconcern here is with reforms after World WarII.     

Higher education privatisation,internationalisation and marketisation: Singaporean versus Malaysian models of Asian education hub policy

The metaphor of an ‘education hub’ was initially promoted as also a policy concept for reversing cross-border student flows to the West in both Malaysia and Singapore. The Singapore version of ‘Asian education hub policy’ represents a distinct economic policy model of higher education which has since also influenced the very Western contexts it was derived from. However, it appears the Singaporeans might have actually borrowed the policy concept from the Malaysians whose aspirations to reverse international student flows to the West was rather aligned to related national capacity development plans as still something of a public good. This paper will use a Malaysia-Singapore contrast to compare distinct developing country (national/regional) vs. developed country (globalised) conceptions of the Asian education hub model. On this exemplary basis, it will also outline an integrated framework to better make sense of the related yet also often conflicting imperatives of privatization, internationalization and marketization.